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“Fucking hell.”
He shook his head, and I almost laughed at the annoyance in his voice. The four boys were like brothers, and that included being able to irritate each other like brothers.
Although, in fairness, it was possible the other Princes were just worried—or that they had something important to tell us. Neither of us had picked up our phones for several hours.
Mason threw off the covers and stood, walking unabashedly across the room to pick up his clothes while I hobbled over and grabbed a worn t-shirt, new panties, and a pair of yoga pants from the dresser. I didn’t look at him as I dressed. I knew how to be naked with someone in the context of sex, but in the aftermath, I felt a little awkward about it.
He’d already seen everything, but for some reason, I felt suddenly shy.
He waited until I was tugging my shirt down to stride out the door, and I followed him a second later. Cole, Elijah, and Finn were already pouring into the apartment when I stepped out of the bedroom, and from the looks on their faces, no one had any doubts about what’d just happened between me and Mason.
Elijah and Finn looked almost amused, but Cole’s face was unreadable. His ice-blue gaze cut back and forth between me and the other boy before he looked away.
Mason didn’t seem to think there was any need to explain or defend either one of us though, so I decided I wouldn’t either.
“What’s up?” I asked instead, moving stiffly toward the living room. My ankle was always worst after I woke up, and I rolled it around a few times in gentle circles after I sat, loosening the tight ligaments.
“None of the teachers saw enough to report anything,” Cole said, coming to sit beside me. Mason was on my other side, and I couldn’t help but notice that Cole sat closer to me than Mason had, as if trying to send the other boy some message.
“Yeah. And we made sure none of the kids who were in the hall will say anything either,” Finn added.
He caught my gaze and grinned, seeming so damn amused by me and Mason that I kind of wanted to punch him.
I still wasn’t sure where along the line it had happened, but Leah had been right. The Princes had become a package deal. Maybe they’d gotten the ball rolling with their dare that I kiss them all, but I had kept it rolling, given it a giant kick down the hill, when I had kissed them all in the ocean on the night of my birthday.
The night I had been wild and free, and had taken what I wanted.
“Good.” Mason’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “What about Preston?”
Finn shrugged. “You got him pretty good, but he’s had worse from Cole, and he didn’t report that. I don’t think he will. He might be on Adena’s side, but at the end of the day, he’s still a fucking pussy.”
“I should’ve hit him harder,” Mason grunted, but when I put my hand on his leg, he took a deliberate breath and blew it out.
Then he told the others what he’d told me, about Preston’s seeming veiled threats that he and Adena would be coming after me somehow.
“Shit,” Elijah breathed, concern flashing in his hazel eyes. He sat forward in the easy chair next to the couch. “He didn’t say what? Or give you any idea?”
“No.” Mason seemed to be actively trying to rein in his temper, and I wondered if that was for my benefit—if maybe some of what I’d said had gotten through to him. Then he turned to me, his expression serious. “From now on, Princess, I don’t want you to be alone. Ever. And if you hate that, I’m sorry. I won’t go after Preston without proof, but I’ll be god-fucking-damned if I let anything happen to you.”
Mason hadn’t been kidding.
And the other boys hadn’t put in a single word of disagreement. They’d been universally on the same page, and I wasn’t able to find a good argument for why I shouldn’t have an escort at all times.
If Preston and Adena really were working on some other plot against me, I needed all the support I could get. And I knew this was Mason’s best compromise, when what he really wanted to do was bash Preston’s face in until it was unrecognizable—and hell, maybe Adena’s too.
They had already rearranged their classes to match mine, but now, the four boys were in my life twenty-four seven. Over the next few weeks, they took shifts sleeping over at my apartment, crashing with a blanket and a pillow on the couch.
After what’d happened between me and three of them, I thought maybe having them sleep over would lead to having them in my bed, but they all strenuously avoided that, as if trying to make it abundantly clear that wasn’t what this was about.
That they weren’t using my “protection” as a cheap ploy to get into my pants.
I appreciated it, although I found myself strangely disappointed too. It was probably a good thing not to confuse the issue or make things more complicated, but at the same time, things were already complicated.
And my almost unreasonable craving for the four gorgeous, dangerous boys hadn’t grown any less strong.
They rotated shifts, driving me to and from my physical therapy sessions several times a week, and Mason had arranged for a local mechanic to come and do basic checks on all of our cars every few days. When I asked him if that was really necessary, his cryptic response was, “Better safe than sorry.”
And he was right. It felt like overkill, but if it had occurred to any of us to have someone check my car before I’d driven it at the end of the previous semester, I would still be walking normally, instead of limping through life and struggling through what felt like physical therapy boot camp.
